


Cutting Out the Pain

by Deannie



Series: In Your Head Bingo [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trust McKay to believe that a man like him would want that kind of pain. Would welcome it. Trust McKay to be right. Written for hc_bingo, prompt: self-harm. Takes place during "The Tao of Rodney."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cutting Out the Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Themed bingo: In Your Head. All stories must be written from single character perspective and the majority of the story must be that character with no real-time interaction with others (meaning flashbacks and imagined discussions are acceptable, but actual conversations are not).

Digging.

Digging, tearing, shards of metal or blades or brands...

Cut or burn—one time he even used a power device, nearly electrocuting himself in his attempt to overload it. Destroy it. Kill it.

The scars were deep and hard and thick. Ronon laughed in the darkness of his room, his tunic on the bed beside him, his hands bent awkwardly behind his back, tracing smooth skin and ghosting over bone. McKay had said he’d healed the scars—had even asked permission to do it, in a weird sort of way—but Ronon couldn’t quite believe it until he’d felt every inch himself.

His mind ran over the conversation in the hallway as his hands ran over his newly healed skin.

A badge of honor.

Trust McKay to believe that a man like him would want that kind of pain. Would welcome it.

Trust McKay to be right.

Ronon remembered the first time he’d bent his arms back, all but dislocating the shoulders as he sought to tear the tracking device from his own body. The pain had been different, somehow, from the pain inflicted by the Wraith and their sadistic hunt. It had been his hands cutting, his fingers tearing, something fully under his control. Control he’d been missing for far too long.

Somehow, it had felt good. Blood welling up and running down his back, soaking the ground below his ass as he sawed and pried and tried to free himself. His work, his mark.

His failure.

That failure burned, and the next, and the next, but still he tried. For his wife, his family, his friends, for Sateda he cut and cut and never once considered lying down and dying. He wouldn’t be like the cowards who had sacrificed his home to save themselves. He knew that if he fought, one day, he’d be free. And he would return and salvage what was left.

But it had never happened. Sateda was dead and gone years before the Atlantis team had found him. He’d gone feral—and he’d reveled in it. It was easier to be an animal than a civilized man in a world of monsters. Even now some part of him refused to return to “normal life,” as if by holding on to the primal nature of running, he could maintain control over his part in the fight he’d taken on

The Atlantians’ fight—one he sometimes let himself believe could be won.

John Sheppard led them into battle. A warrior like himself, John had seemed about as sane to Ronon’s not-so-sane eyes when they met. Sanity had returned to Ronon after all this time, but he still saw the hard similarities. John Sheppard was broken, too. He just had people around to make sure he didn’t fall to pieces.

Teyla was one of those people, and Teyla was the kind of leader Ronon wished they’d had on Sateda. He wondered what it would have been like to have a woman who wouldn’t back down no matter the odds. She’d never have tried to save herself like his government had. Like Melena, she knew that people—individual people—were worth saving, no matter the cost. She’d’ve died like the rest, probably, but with fire and honor, taking as many of those monsters with her as she could.

Rodney McKay was still a mystery Ronon knew he’d never crack. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. McKay was too smart for Ronon to understand and too condescending for him to try. Half the words out of the man’s mouth were nonsense to him and he felt stupid, animal in a less desirable way. McKay called him a caveman—a reference he hadn’t understood until he’d gotten the hang of Earth script and looked it and the word Neanderthal up in their databases.

He could have killed McKay for the insult right there, but something about the man stopped him. McKay was good, in a way—a really strange way—and he wanted to help people. He just didn’t know how.

But he was like a spoiled child and it drove Ronon insane. Sometimes McKay reminded him of Melena’s five-year-old nephew who’d pranced around giving every adult advice on how to play roundbag because he’d finally sunk his first tag, and sometimes he reminded him of the bullies in the schoolyard who made fun of the younger or smaller or slower kids just because they could. And yet…

A callused finger ran over the smooth skin of his back. And yet…

He’d seen Rodney McKay willing to lay down his life for another person. People he loved, people he hated, people he didn’t even _know_. He’d seen the anguish in the man’s eyes when he lost a member of his science team. He’d seen the man trying to peek out from behind the wall of childish fear that he’d built no one knew how long ago.

Ronon’s hands dropped to his sides as he sat heavily on his bed. It didn’t so much surprise him that he was going to miss Rodney McKay when he died… It was more that he’d forgotten exactly what losing a member of your family felt like after all this time.

Like slicing through skin and muscle, digging for a pain you couldn’t reach…

“Ronon. Teyla. Meet me in medlab.” John’s voice was cold. Frightened.

Ronon threw on his tunic, feeling the weight of it on now-unblemished skin.

He hoped he’d have a chance to say goodbye.

He wished it would help.

The Ancestors knew there was nothing he could do to cut the pain out this time.

* * * * * * *  
The End


End file.
